If you desire perfect abdominals, the best cardio exercise is NOT the typical steady state cardio workout at 60 – 70% of your max pulse rate that many people practice.
Are you obsessed with these types of cardiovascular exercises and cardio workouts?
Do you think cardio is the solution when you’re thinking of getting in great shape and melting away excess body fat?
You’ve probably heard it lots of times.
“Do 30 to sixty minutes of moderate level cardio workout three to five times per week. Perform this cardiovascular exercise in your “fat burning” range of 60 – 70% of your max heart rate.”
You should not succumb to this BS. The truth is, intense interval training is more preferable to help you get healthy, fit and burn off fat quickly, than any common cardio workout. And the scientific records data backs it up.
Our bodies are certainly not designed to do continuous amounts of steady conditioning at the same heart rate. We are created for short bursts of action and then short recovery periods, like our hunter/gatherer ancestors.
Most competitive sports (basketball, hockey, football, soccer, etc.) are designed exactly the same way.
This is why circuit training work outs get such great results.
One great illustration I always present is analyzing the body of the top level sprinter versus that of the marathoner.
Which one do you think looks more healthy?
Which one seems to be in better physical shape?
And it is not just for burning fat or becoming fit. There are other health and fitness benefits to interval training when compared to long duration steady state cardiovascular exercising.
Most researchers think long constant state cardio heightens free radical production in the body, can degenerate joints, lowers immune function, cause muscle wasting, and will result in a pro-inflammatory reaction in your body that may possibly lead to chronic illnesses.
Some physicians believed that this serious state of being physically over trained could possibly have contributed to hockey star Mario Lemiuex’s cancer.
On the other hand, HIIT is shown to increase anti-oxidant production in your body, while also boosting your metabolic processes and helping you to shed weight and burn fat faster than steady state aerobic exercises.
There’s a ton of methods to perform interval training.
For instance, a high intensity interval training session on your stationary bike could look something like this:
Warm-up for 3-4 minutes in a low setting, sufficient to break a sweat.
* Interval 1 – pedal at level 6 for 1 minute
* Interval 2 – pedal at level 2 for 1.5 minutes
* Interval 3 – pedal at level 8 for 1 minute
* Interval 4 – pedal at level 2 for 1.5 minutes
Do those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute exercise.
Obviously you have to modify the levels according to your existing level of fitness.
You can also easily perform intervals with a great jump rope workout. You can include some of the best exercises to lose weight as part of your training session to crank up your results even faster.